Edwin L. Mechem

Edwin Leard Mechem (2 July 1912-27 November 2002) was Governor of New Mexico (R) from 1 January 1951 to 1 January 1955 (succeeding Thomas J. Mabry and preceding John F. Simms), from 1 January 1957 to 1 January 1959 (succeeding Simms and preceding John Burroughs), and from 1 January 1961 to 30 November 1962 (succeeding Burroughs and preceding Tom Bolack). He also served as the US Senator from New Mexico from 30 November 1962 to 3 November 1964, succeeding Dennis Chavez and preceding Joseph Montoya.

Biography
Edwin Leard Mechem was born in Alamogordo, New Mexico in 1912, the nephew of Governor Merritt C. Mechem, and he worked as a land surveyor, as a lawyer, and as an FBI agent before serving in the State House of Representatives from 1947 to 1948 as a Republican Party member. He served as Governor from 1951 to 1955, from 1957 to 1959, and from 1961 to 1962, and he arranged his own appointment to the US Senate in 1962 after Dennis Chavez's sudden death in Washington DC. Mechem, a conservative, opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 1970, President Richard Nixon appointed him as a federal judge for the US District Court for the District of New Mexico, and he served from 1970 to 1982, when he took senior status. He died in 2002.